>When we took that first grand leap across the stars, we expected to find many things.>We didn't expect to find a graveyard.>The universe is dying, and it's practically dead already. Superweapons launched by civilizations themselves long dead eat away at vast swathes of space. Vast, ever-expanding fields decorate the void. Some cause matter to simply split apart, others slow the speed of light to a foot or so per second, others still compress space into two dimensions. What the fields do matters not. What does is that every day, more and more systems are devoured.>We have eleven thousand years, at most. If the theory of Exponential Expansion is true, we may not even get that.>It gets worse. When we made that first FTL jump, we generated a signal. It's been recived.>Beings from every corner of the galaxy are heading Sol-ward, hoping to use our small pocket of peace and quiet to prolong their existence by a few short years. Us? We're just in the way.

>>54201965That's a good starting point.But what is gonna happen next? Are they gonna fight a war to get to a place instead of fighting the common threat?Is there any chance of alliance?Or is it a story about how the world falls, and how people cope?

>>54202992>One of the alien races seeking shelter in our stellar cluster is coming in an ancient Dyson sphere. It's very presence near Sol would be catastrophic.>They don't care about screwing with our solar system.

>>54203251>The first extraterrestrial colony ever established in human space belonged to a race now dubbed the Lotus-Eaters. Roughly 10 years after their ship finished decelerating in the YGH-2468 system, their colony simply... disappeared. Current speculation is that they slowed the speed of light within their ststem significantly, making it inaccessible to spacecraft.>Although the generation of a massive gravitational wave immediately before the event doesn't entirely fit the theory.

> The species of the Dyson Sphere, commonly referred to as "Bulb-heads" or "Bulbies" are roughly two-thirds the size of humans, and their massive craniums make up almost half of their body mass. They are obscenely intelligent, and have come to depend on advanced mechanized suits to support their skulls and augment their naturally pitiful strength.

>>54203651>53 years ago, the Dyson sphere dispatched a small probe, that flew to the edge of a relatively barren solar system and slowed to a halt.>Beliving the Bulbies intended to make first contact, humanity dispatched a probe to attempt to meet with them.>It went... poorly.

> "..."> "The recordings were rather... traumatizing, to say the least..."> "Magnets, were involved"> "Very, very high powered magnets, that is"> "..."> "To be honest, we don't have the slightest idea how anyone survived to relay the recording."

>>54203823>Occasionally, scavengers will find mysterious shapes floating in the void>They're frequently discs, but hexagons, triangles, and yet more unusual things have been known to appear>We finally figured out what they were when we found a crossection of a person within one

> Several native livestock specimens were captured and had their genes altered, to be cultivated on hastily terraformed moons and planets, to replace synthetic meat.> Granted, the natural meat is only slightly more flavorful than the synthetic meat, and cultivating them is a wasteful endeavor, arguably more trouble than it's worth.> Then again, reality as we know it will cease to exist within an eon. In light of that, they figured, why not indulge ourselves a little?

>The Zealots are a group of aliens that believe the end of this universe will herald the coming of their Messiah, the math they use as proof is rather convincing.>They use themselves as bait to lure the more mobile doomsday weapons towards peaceful regions of space.

>>54204603>Zealot ships (or at least openly Zealot ships) are easily identifiable by the odd transmission pattern they emit. While human linguists are still working to decode the Lingua Franca of the Zealots, the fragments we can understand indicate it to be a constantly looping recitation of their holy book.

> The leading species, called the "Watchers" are levitating cephalopods almost completely covered by tentacles, eyestalks, and sensory appendages. They are allegedly able to perceive dozens of separate wavelengths and higher dimensions, and psychically bend them to their will, hence, the levitation.> The eldest Watchers are allegedly able to see into the future, and they have prophesied the coming of the Messiah. In addition to levitation, they are able to levitate objects, induce combustion, and send one-way messages into the minds of those making eye contact with them.> They use this as evidence of their "miraculous" nature.

>>54204603>There are those within our government agencies that believe we only achieved FTL due to their hidden intervention. That the entire situation we find ourselves in is a trap for the many refugees coming to out region.

> The only Zealot species to openly show themselves and communicate with those outside of the faith are the Ohjbah, very asymmetrical creatures resembling terrestrial starfish.> The Ohjbah are miniscule and dimwitted, but are very skilled linguists and mathematicians, and are happy to trade relics and ancient secrets for the right to proselytize.> Most species kill them on sight, but a few allow them to speak, and as a result, they have a sizable minority of Zealots among their ranks.

> In sight of impending oblivion, most species have fallen into one of four schools of thought. Many species are split between two or more, and there are those don't fall into any philosophy at all.

> 1.) Those who see the coming end of all things in a religious light, and either do all they can to hasten its coming, or do all they can to prepare themselves spiritually.> 2.) Those who refuse to accept that oblivion is inevitable, and do all they can to preserve a future for themselves and their species as a whole, either by attempting to stave off or reverse the coming end, or by attempting to escape it entirely.> 3.) Those who see the coming end as inevitable and seeing no possible avenue of escape, resolve to do all they can to enjoy the time they have left, either by falling into destructive nihilist hedonism or attempting to seek some kind of purpose in life.> 4.) Those who realize that oblivion isn't coming in their lifetimes or the lifetimes of their grandchildren, and consequently, don't care one way or another, living as normally as possible.

>>54201965The first thing I thought of was Dr Who for some reason. Perhaps some of the last remnants of those vastly powerful stellar empires feel guilty about everything and want to help. Of course their culture and technology is so above ours they appear to be blabbering eccentrics who come and go randomly after dispensing seemingly non sensical metaphors and phrases.

> The "safe space" is made up of little over half a million stars in an oblong circle, containing the Sol system.> The aliens didn't reach the safe space in significant numbers until humanity managed to colonize a solid fifth of the territory.> During the earliest era of expansion, humanity was blissfully unaware the universe was coming to an end, and were it not for humanity's inherently violent, tribal nature, their weapons wouldn't have been nearly advanced enough to compete with the encroaching alien refugees.> As it is, humanity is roughly half as advanced as the typical aliens, but are far more numerous and are able to bring many more resources to bare.

>>54201965>Upon learning all of this, human intelligence and military groups formed the Saccades, a transnational group with the single goal of using any and all means, tactics, and resources to repulse the incoming aliens and protect Sol.>After 10 years of relentless exploitation of alien artifacts, Saccade personnel were disconcerting, if extremely effective.>After 20 years, the Saccades were hard to understand and their ethics and tactics were terrifying, though through the blood and fire and human experimentation no one could contest that Sol was safe against these impossible odds.>After 30 years, the Saccades were no longer recognizable as a human organization, or as individual humans, furiously destroying, vivisecting, and incorporating the genes and tech of each alien group that moved on Sol. Their reports back to Earth are now completely indecipherable when they arrive at all.>The Saccades are now considered as great a threat to humanity as the aliens.

> Humanity is very much fragmented, and many factions of almost every outlook and ideology feud with another and vie for supremacy.> The only thing they can agree on is that they'd rather not be driven extinct by the ancient superweapons and desperate aliens.

>>54205516>One of the most disturbing things about the Saccades is a small 'signature' that began to pop up at the end of their reports. While most of the report is garbled and untranslatable, this signature is always written in clear and simple Basic.>"We still remember home."

>>54205516>>54205550>>54205578>>54205618>The Saccades are indecipherable in action as they are in speech, sometimes rushing to the aid of a human faction's colony one month and destroying their main fleet the next.>Sometimes human intelligence groups piece together a method to the madness, like when the destruction of that fleet led to improved colonial defenses in just the right subsector to delay a massive invading alien fleet six years later until the Saccades could destroy it.>For most such actions, though, no human reasoning can be determined.

> While the Saccades are undeniably the largest, strangest, and most powerful group of transhumans, they certainly aren't the only group of transhumans.> Over the past millennia, dozens of human subspecies have arisen, genetially designed to better perform certain tasks, or survive certain environments.> The vast majority of these subspecies are barely distinguishable from baseline humans, and can produce fertile offspring without issue.> However, several subspecies have diverged from the human genome to the extent they aren't recognizable as human, and for all intents and purposes, are no different from the alien invaders.

>>54201965>Pluto is our early warning system. Festooned with sensors, hyperspace searchlights and telescopes pointed in every which way>The asteroid belt's spaces are now filled with disruption fields, hyper-oscillating titanium razor wire and sentry bots>What's on Mercury is top secret, but whatever it is, telescopic photographs show it's pointed at our sun

> For all intents and purposes, the Sol system is the galaxy's most impregnable fortress, and despite the efforts of countless traitorous factions, raider hordes, and alien species, not one has been successful in the destruction of mother earth, though several have come close.

>>54205516>https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccade>"Asaccade(/sᵻˈkɑːd/sə-KAHD,Frenchforjerk) is a quick, simultaneous movement of both eyesbetween two or more phases offixation in the same direction.">"Areflexive saccadeis triggered exogenously by the appearance of a peripheral stimulus, or by the disappearance of a fixation stimulus.">"Saccades are one of the fastest movements produced by the human body.">"Once saccades are underway, they cannot be altered at will."

> In ancient times, before the war that tore reality asunder, a pacifistic deep-sea dwelling species advocated for neutrality and peace. Unfortunately, they were ignored and their efforts failed. Like almost all other species at the time, their civilization was almost completely annihilated and the few survivors were driven to the brink of extinction.> The species, the Phiss, haven't changed a bit despite the circumstances in which they find themselves. In ancient times, they refused to participate in any side of the conflict, barring a direct and imminent threat to their existence. Instead, they traded their knowledge, accommodated any and all refugees willing to assimilate into their civilization, and did all they could to reduce the death toll.> When the apocalypse came, they scattered throughout the cosmos, fleeing the coming end, uplifting as many primitive species as possible. Several species owe their existence to the Phiss and as a result, do all they can to protect them from the more warlike species.> They are extremely intelligent, not from sheer volume of knowledge like the Bulb-heads, but from sheer speed of thought, they perceive time several dozen times faster than humans.> They live for centuries, and view other species as hopelessly ignorant and tragically short-lived primitives, but nonetheless, do all they can to help.

>>54205867>The most successful raiders reached the belt before grinding to a halt against the asteroid barricades>The wrecks still lie tangled in the defences>The passengers and crew still haven't been fully exterminated>Some ships' hull design contains a memetic thought-virus>Quarantine and research into immune subspecies is still ongoing>Mercury has already spotted the newest incoming threat

>following ever increasing incursions into human space, and the subsequent build up of more and more defenses, a nascent dyson swarm is starting to be constructed around Sol>due to anthropocentric fervor, it was deemed "unacceptable" to disassemble all but the most minor of celestial bodies in the solar system, as well as the motion to starlift heavy elements from Sol being denied.>as such, humanity has begun harvesting and dissasembling the nearest neighbors to Sol, at least those that currently don't have colonies or habitable planets.>A steadily growing dead zone around humanity's core worlds expands as more and more resources are put into constructing the trillions upon trillions of habitats, foundries, and defensive platforms>And amidst it all, the natural worlds of the solar system hang within the cloud, like rocks in the fog, just enough of a channel in the swarm's orbital paths to allow for light to reach them

> The Bulb-heads, with their monopoly on Dyson Spheres, are doing everything in their power to prevent humanity from completing its construction.> They believe that upon completion of the Dyson Sphere, humanity will become their equal, and within the century, it would be within their power to exterminate their species.> The Bulbies cannot allow this to come to pass.

Perhaps their Dyson Sphere is ancient, decrepit, slowly falling apart, its sun is beginning to fade, and they can't restore either until they have an empire capable of amassing the necessary resources and exotic materials. Until then, it's its operating at a fraction of its full potential, and at the moment, humanity's full might can rival its destructive capacity.

The restoration of their Dyson Sphere is quite literally the only hope their species has of survival, and they don't dare to risk its destruction by attacking Sol directly. Instead, they're using remotely controlled drone swarms and splinter fleets to assail humanity and delay their efforts until they can come up with a solution.

Not that anon, but what if the virus was just an extremely adaptive and vicious malware capable of irreversibly destroying any electronic equipment within a large radius around the wreckage, where the spiteful descendents of the original crew are broadcasting it as far as they're able?

How does FTL travel work in this setting? I like the idea of there being many different ways to achieve FTL travel, with different species, factions, and individuals employing different methods. There could be a gravity slingshot method, a warp drive method, a hyper-lane method, a wormhole teleportation method, a near-relativistic speed method, an outright physics bending method, etc. There's a lot of possible FTL methods that could fit.

Thanks for this thread guys. It inspired me to finally get on with writing up the setting and lore for the game I'm about to run. Barely related to this (interdimensional rather than interstellar) but still.

>>54207416>The FTL of the Zealots work in a variety of ways, but there is one predominant method. A downsized version of a dangerous weapon, one that generates a field wherein both Newtonian and Einsteinian physics hold no sway. The field is formed in a straight line, however, and so the ship must painstakingly align with its final destination.>Bulbies have a simpler approach. First, a machine generates a wormhole at their destination. The farther away the destination, the smaller and more power-intensive the wormhole is. Then, the machine pulls itself through the wormhole, like a man slipping a bag over his head. Distance is limited, but accuracy is not.

>Humanity has taken a more brute-force approach to FTL. It took a considerable amount of time for us to engineer a power source capable of propelling a vehicle to over c, but we did it. Energy goes into the S reactor, and a brilliant spray of energized particles and exotic radiation comes out the other end. As a downside, human FTL travel is highly noticeable, and must be conducted far away from habitable settlements.

> The Phiss are a nomadic species, their fleets travel from planet to planet, marketing their relatively advanced technology and skill in reverse-engineering ancient artifacts, in exchange for raw materials and protection from raiders.> Despite being one of the most advanced species, the Phiss haven't been able to establish an empire. There are several reasons for this:> 1.) Because of their immensely complicated genome and intricate physiology, it takes decades for a single Phiss to gestate and mature, because of this, their numbers are slim.> 2.) The few Phiss are scattered across a handful of fleets of as few as a dozen ancient vessels, and each vessel is almost completely unorganized. They see no need for governmental authority, each Phiss pursues his scientific projects alone, or with the occasional assistance of a colleague or customized drone.> 3.) They abhor violence, seeing it beneath themselves, and prefer avoiding conflict to neutralizing aggressors. In the past, they have suffered many times for this, but in their pride, they stubbornly insist on violence as a last resort.> 4.) They have no need for an empire, they obtain everything they need through trade, and if they were to settle, eventually they would be forced to exterminate lesser species, something they'd rather avoid.> 5.) The species allied to them have agreed to allow Phiss to terraform and settle planetary bodies near the cores of their empires, both as an incentive to continue trade and as compensation for uplifting them to begin with.

> The Crith have lived since the dawn of the universe, and if it is within their power, they will live to see its end. A species of hulking, armored crustaceans, the Crith are shockingly similar to earthly horseshoe crabs physiologically, they have not changed the slightest in almost thirteen billion years of evolution, and they cling to life with an unshakable tenacity.> They originally evolved on an oceanic hellhole of a planet, where every thing, living and nonliving, sought to consume and destroy them. In response, they evolved to consume and destroy their home planet. After several million years of hardscrabble evolution, they managed to develop crude FTL and rudimentary terraforming technology. Upon ascending to the cosmos, they shattered their home planet and vaporized the fragments out of spite.> Their desire for revenge satiated, they proceeded to terraform, colonize, and ravage everything in their path, leaving a trail of plundered and polluted waste behind them. Having no threat to themselves, and being unable to comprehend the concept of intuition for the sake of intuition, Crith technology didn't advance beyond its primitive roots for eons.> Crith fleets slaughtered and enslaved any and all alien species too weak to oppose them, and were responsible for the genocide of hundreds, if not thousands of minor empires. When they came upon an species too advanced for them to hope to defeat, the Crith fought regardless, the survivors learned from their foe, and a few millennia later, exacted a vicious and bloody vengeance upon those who wronged them.> For billions of years in a repeating cycle, the Crith were slaughtered to the point almost none remained, and, without fail, bounced back from the brink within a million years and returned the favor, or if unable to slay their foe on a second try, fled and found an easier target. > (1/2)

> Due to the constant rise and fall of their civilization, their technology never advanced beyond improved and more resilient versions of their original achievements. Because of this, they never came to rely on technology, and because of this, never changed as a species.> During the war of the cosmos, the Crith were in the first half of their recovery stage, having been defeated by the combined efforts of an alliance of species half a million years prior. They fought as mercenaries for the highest bidder, and raided the frontiers of the species who wouldn't hire them.> When the doomsday weapons were activated, the Crith viewed it as another obstacle to be overcome. They reasoned the best way to overcome the eventual death of the universe was to keep raiding and pillaging, figuring that eventually they'd steal a way to reverse the apocalypse from a more advanced species.> When humanity took its first steps into the cosmos, the Crith ignored the signal, and focused on raiding the refugees, following them wherever they were headed, and terraforming, settling, and plundering planets along the way. > Over the next six thousand years, they reached the safe space and promptly proceeded to plunder it as well. In the past millennia, they've settled almost ten thousand worlds, and sacked twice that number. They are on the far edge of the safe space, opposite from humanity, and steadily looting, raiding, and conquering their way to Sol.> Already, humanity's frontier worlds have fought the Crith, and suffered greatly against them. Crith technology is only marginally more advanced than humanity's, but like them, it's damn near unbreakable and just won't quit! In the millennia to come, if they aren't stopped, the Crith will conquer an empire for themselves as large as, if not larger than humanity's, and then, as they always have, they will overcome.> (2/2)

> The Bulbies ruled an empire of thousands of Dyson Spheres and countless star systems in a distant galaxy in the remote past, but their empire was shattered by a far superior civilization, and the few mobile Dyson Spheres that managed to escape their wrath have been wandering the cosmos for countless eons, harrassed and assaulted by their ancient foes and aggressive upstarts on all sides without respite, never able to re-establish their empire, reclaim their past glory, and have slowly begun to lose the knowledge of their ancestors.> When the war of the cosmos came, their ancient foes destroyed each other, but in their hubris, condemned the universe to their own fate. The few remaining Dyson Spheres, once almost nothing in the grand scheme of things, became among the most advanced technological wonders of the universe. Without significant competition, the Bulbies were free to build an empire, but the doomsday fields forced them to flee every step of the way.> Finally, when all seemed lost, the Final Dyson Sphere received a signal from the fringe of the universe, and its inhabitants soon realized the signal led to a safe space, were their kind could rebuild their ancient glory, free from armageddon, if only for a little bit.> The only obstacle before them is the fledgeling, balkanized human empire, and the pathetic remnants of dying species. They will restore their ancient glory, and all inferior species will kneel, or be ground to dust beneath them!

>It's believed that there in a small corner of the universe lays a gateway to another universe. Said corner also happens to be the most concentrated of the super-weapons and death fields. However many will chase it, even if it's just false hope. Still while one travels in space, they can find probes referring to such a portal every once in a while.

>>54209797>and elaborate on the several rogue transhuman species. I'll start up on that once I finish some yard work and have access to my PC.

Not him but I'll toss in a few. The names are just stuff I asspulled though so feel free to rename them.

Keragians>Tall, stocky humans with bone outcroppings across their surface>Less flexible but more durable>Primitive compared to other transhumans but sturdy enough that they can survive most planets with harsh weather conditions, like acid rain, blistering heat, or wind that slices into your skin.>Usually on the border of human territory so they have to deal with a lot of the alien menace, causing them to be some of the most xenophobic transhumans.>Cities are massive tangled heaps of industrial architecture sprawling across the planet.

Flast:>Slender humans with two ovular organs situated on their back that produce wings made out of a biological non-Newtonian fluid, which squirts into shape when extruded and back into liquid mode when stored.>almost no sexual dimorphism due to such things getting in the way of aerodynamics >built for low atmosphere and gravity environments, can be found on many moons and planetoids. Can survive in space for a limited time.>Most follow a dogma of self-sufficiency, and seek to create self-sustaining arcologies that jut out from their worlds like giant pyramidal spires miles in height and width.

Tegnos:>Originally a sect of monks of an obscure religion that focused on self-improvement. >Over time grew to see no distinction between flesh and metal.>Citizens are all cyborgs, tools and weapons use organic parts, there is effectively no line between man and machine.>Basically biotech Mormons who are generally pleasant to talk to but also want to convert you into becoming one of them.>Have a small patch of space they control completely, no one knows what the fuck goes on inside of it. This makes some people worried.

In my opinion, these seem more like moderately altered humans than completely divergent transhumans. That said, good shit anon. There's space for a shit-ton more subspecies, and factions, it all adds life to the setting. I have a few suggestions,

What if the Keragians originated from a fortress world on the border called Kerag, which is the source of their name and the revered centerpiece of their empire, and they're sentimentally closer to it than Sol?

What if instead of the Flast, they were called the Vlast? I don't know, I just feel like it rolls off the tongue easier. The Tegnos sound interesting, I feel like they should have a hollowed-out and revered vault world in the center of their space, the "Mecca" of their religion.

Yeah looking back I can see I haven't gone nearly extreme enough. I'll have to think a bit and make something more alien.

>What if the Keragians originated from a fortress world on the border called Kerag, which is the source of their name and the revered centerpiece of their empire, and they're sentimentally closer to it than Sol?

This could work

>What if instead of the Flast, they were called the Vlast?

Works for me. Or maybe because their language is all weird, outsiders have like a dozen different similar-sounding names for them, which their efficiency-minded culture finds mildly irritating.

>The Tegnos sound interesting, I feel like they should have a hollowed-out and revered vault world in the center of their space, the "Mecca" of their religion.

> Yeah looking back I can see I haven't gone nearly extreme enough. I'll have to think a bit and make something more alien.

I'll pitch in myself, it'll be interesting to see what comes out.

> This could work

I'm thinking the Keragians are a warlike race, not so much proud honorable warriors, as much as they are stubborn industrialists holding the line against any and all would-be invaders, not breaking before the ground beneath them and all that. I imagine with their resilience, they don't give a shit about pollution, and might actually cultivate it to toughen up their population and make conquering them that much harder for the aliens.

> Works for me. Or maybe because their language is all weird, outsiders have like a dozen different similar-sounding names for them, which their efficiency-minded culture finds mildly irritating.

I like the idea of outsiders having a bunch of interchangable names for them, maybe they have so many names because they're so widespread in human space.

> I mean it sounds interesting but I don't want to rip off the AdMech.

Right, right, I was thinking their religion is more focused on self-improvement than the preservation of knowledge. Maybe the vault is the storehouse of their bizzare mismatched fleet and all of the knowledge they've managed to accumulate, doubling as a sort of temple/holy site the Tegnos revere daily, and have a plan to flee too when the apocalypse comes.

> In ancient times, the Watchers maintained and operated the communications equipment of the great powers, and were genetically perfected for their task of perceiving and responding to metaphysical signals. Hence, the name.

>>54211895>Right, right, I was thinking their religion is more focused on self-improvement than the preservation of knowledge. Maybe the vault is the storehouse of their bizzare mismatched fleet and all of the knowledge they've managed to accumulate, doubling as a sort of temple/holy site the Tegnos revere daily, and have a plan to flee too when the apocalypse comes.

That could work, yeah. And I think they shouldn't be overtly religious in the traditional sense. Religion might not actually be the best word for it. Think like, a set of spiritual principles as opposed to worship of a certain supernatural entity. Like Bhuddism without Bhudda and just the dogma for it, only instead of acceptance and the removal of desire its about trying to become the perfect life form for whatever your task is.

They're not sending their best and brightest, folks. They just aren't. They are probing anuses, they are abducting cattle and I assume some of them are good ayys. We're gonna build a force field to keep the ayys out and the ayys will pay for it.

Believe me, I know force fields. It will be the biggest, best force field within 10,000 light years. It will make the force field they have on Tau Ceti E look like it's made out of Legos. And after we build the force field we are sending every ayy that is here illegally back to their homeworld. It's time to make Earth great again.

I spoke to their leader, their head guy the other day, and he said "President Trump, you can't build a force field and we certainly aren't paying for it." You know what I said to him? I said "Draxzlor, the force field just got 10 miles higher."

>>54212158>>54212213>>54212392>>54212702I appreciate the Trumpposting but we should probably cease lest the thread becomes derailed by politics. Its a pretty good thread and I'd like for it not to be fucked up by shitposting.

>As we explore the galexy, we discover planets fragmented and ripped apart. Huge crustacial fragments of planets being held together by the remenants of ancient technology, it's creators long gone. >Through out the galexy, distortion in space-time caused by ancient weapons leave the explosions of planets frozen in time, with any matter that comes into contact of the boundaries frozen. For asthetic purposes, supernovas are frozen in space-time, emitting huge amounts of radiation inside of some systems. The multi color gases Arora like to outside viewers.>After our first jump in FTL, we detect Einstein-Rosen bridges between deep space and the boundaries of our civilized territories, which makes up about 20 or so of the nearest star systems. At first, only remenants of ancient civilizations come through, but after a few years, planetary fragments and alien vessels emerge.>Like Halo, one of the ancient bioweapons was a flood-like race, but instead of fungus, it's crystalline like the creatures from Splinter (2008) Pic related

>>54213002>Many of the intelligent species have been running from the splinters for thousands of years, destroying entire solar systems to halt the neverending chase. >Some races even set of supernovas to kill the creatures. The splinters can attach themselves to the hulls of ships, being able to withstand the vacuum and radiation of space.

>>54213051The other intelligent species employ different methods of FTL>A brutal, war-loving race employ a violent process where they destabilize and drain the energy of a star to jump from system to system, leaving the previous system in ruins.>One race places it's entire population into cryostasis as they blindly launch themselves towards promising systems, taking hundreds of years using sub-FTL.>A purely synthetic race sends tera-formers equipped with automated factories that produce synthetic metallic husks, then the race transmits it's collective concience to it's new colony. They leave their previous world, leaving behind their "cities" and bodies behind.

>>54213179>There is a sect of humans that hold that transcending physical existence is the primary way to survive the doomsday fields (a la Culture Subliming/Commonwealth Post-Physical/ANA).>Some of them have taken to raiding these abandoned stations for hints on how to carry out the transference process and other tech.>This is a risky endeavor, since the old bases retain the synthetic equivalent of reflexes, just lack higher thought.>If an invasion is detected, swarms of strange biomechanical creatures construct themselves from the storage bays with weapons glowing, and idling reactors prepare to vent into the affected areas.>Ship scans of these responses show a direct analogy to biological immune systems, as well as being near-exactly the same as active Synthetic defences. It is unlikely the Synths have much of a concept of sentient conflict because of this.

>>54201965>There is a legend that a single race has figured out a way of retreating into an alternate universe, a sort of lightless dimensional bunker. Supposedly, when the universe is cold and the stars are dead, they will return and take back reality.

> Aside from puncturing the hulls of vessels, a splinter, once embedded, will slowly transform any mass touching the crystal into more of itself. Once the crystal has achieved sufficient mass, it will break apart into dozens of large splinters, designed to pursue and puncture more vessels.> When a biological organism is crystallized, it will retain its original shape, and pursue other organics, intent on cutting or stabbing them, to get the crystal into their system. They don't comprehend pain, fatigue, or any reason beyond their purpose.> These crystallized hunter-killers are changed over time, developing bladed appendages, armored plating, and the ability to fling bladed shards of crystal mass into their opponents with pinpoint accuracy.

> The lowest species in the Zealot Theocracy are the Scuh, a species of small fly-like creatures, they are hexapods, having six crude appendages jutting from their abdomen that double as arms and legs. They move from place to place with a pair of massive wings that make up almost half of their body mass.> The Scuh live only a decade, growing feeble and infirm in their last few months. They mature months after birth, and reproduce prodigiously, laying up to 75 eggs during their semiannual breeding cycle, 8-20 of which hatch. The Scuh evolved on a lethal jungle world in the near past, almost two million years ago, and evolved to reproduce faster than they can be killed, having just enough intelligence to wield basic tools.> Were it not for one of the ancient powers enslaving their species, they likely never would've left their planet. As it was, in the absence of hyper-lethal predators, their numbers grew exponentially, and soon they inhabited almost a third of the galaxy's worlds. When the war of the cosmos raged, their masters used them as cannon fodder, rapidly overwhelming defensive positions with the weight of trillions upon trillions of poorly armed, untrained Scuh.> When the coming end was unleashed, the surviving Scuh rose up, overthrowing their masters, butchering them, and stealing their technology. Within ten centuries, almost all of the Scuh had fallen back to their original primitive state, lacking the wisdom to maintain their relics of their masters, and the knowledge to manufacture more.> The Scuh that failed to advance themselves were destroyed by the coming end, or, much more rarely, were enslaved by alien refugees and forced to undergo hard labor. The handful of Scuh that managed to reach some semblance of FTL tech quickly formed dozens of swarms, overwhelming their superior foes with sheer numbers, settled new planets, and more often than not, lost the knowledge that got them there within the millennia.> (1/2)

> For several centuries, the Scuh swarms managed to survive, in a constant cycle of colonization and regression, before the Zealot fleets found them. Needing an expendable population to act as bait and hard labor, and seeing their potential, the Watchers brought the Scuh into the fold. > Unlike those who had previously enslaved the Scuh by force, the Watchers instead taught them the tenets of their faith, and, lacking the intellect to dispute their teachings, the Scuh subjugated themselves, taking to the faith with the fanatical zealotry only ignorance and lifelong brainwashing can provide.> Under the Zealot theocracy, the Scuh are subservient to every other caste, and with their vast numbers and obscene reproduction rate, are frequently used as bait, cannon fodder, and unskilled laborers.> Not all Scuh are part of the Zealot theocracy, though little over half are. The remaining Scuh are either enslaved by the more cruel refugee species, or their "feral" swarms continue their constant cycle of bloody colonization and subsequent regression.> They are barely above animals in terms of brainpower, and the average Scuh can be considered a tenth as mentally capable as the average human, with almost no memory aside from their primal instincts. Because of this, they require guidance to maintain advanced technology longer than a handful of centuries.> They aren't particularly resilient or enduring at all, and excel at hard labor and the conquest of superior enemies for one reason, and one reason only: for every Scuh that dies, ten more will follow within two years. They aren't intelligent enough to fear danger, and in large numbers, they will fight with unstoppable devotion, believing the odds of them being killed instead of any one of their peers are close to nothing. It isn't uncommon for Scuh to call artillery over their own position, or to use explosively suicidal tactics, because they simply don't grasp the threat to their lives involved.> (2/2)

>>54204668>Some of the Doomsday Fields originated as beneficial tools that were later altered by evolutionary forces or outside manipulation into the weapons we see today.>A subset of the Zealots believe that various Fields can be pitted against each other or otherwise spread evenly to form "resonances". Depending on the sect these either hasten the blessed end of existence or strip away layers of corruption to reveal original, benign, purpose.

>A sickened, sensitive shadow writhing in hands that are not hands, and whirled blindly past ghastly midnights of rotting creation, corpses of dead worlds with sores that were cities, charnel winds that brush the pallid stars and make them flicker low. Beyond the worlds vague ghosts of monstrous things; half-seen columns of unsanctifled temples that rest on nameless rocks beneath space and reach up to dizzy vacua above the spheres of light and darkness.>NYARLATHOTEP by H. P. Lovecraft (1920 )

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/weirdastronomy.php#id--Eldar_Black_Holes>possible to have black hole(s) that are older than the universe... Elder godlike beings older than time, imprisoned in other dimensions... But that's OK. They cannot escape from inside the black hole. That is, of course, until some idiot in an FTL starships travels inside just to see whats there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globus_Cassus>conceptual transformation of Planet Earth into a much bigger, hollow, artificial world with an ecosphere on its inner surface.

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/weirdastronomy.php#id--Dark_Matter_Planet>A planet in a WIMP high region could be kept toasty warm for trillions of years, long after all the stars in the entire universe had burnt out.

http://www.xenology.info/Xeno.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Cloud>The cloud announces that another nearby (by the cloud's standards) intelligent cloud has suddenly stopped communicating and may have vanished. This has apparently happened many times before and is a long-standing mystery to the clouds; the cloud therefore decides to leave the Solar System to investigate.

> A human subspecies designed to inhabit the low gravity world Zbyo, they have spread across human space, inhabiting a few otherwise uninhabitable and unwanted planets.> Zbyo is a tiny, scorchingly hot planet with a chlorine atmosphere, very little water, and even less multicellular life. In addition, its sun is extremely active, constantly producing powerful solar flares, scorching all but the most well-shielded electronics.> Under ordinary circumstances humanity wouldn't have bothered colonizing it, but Zbyo happened to be the only alien-free source of Zybex, an extremely rare exotic material useful for producing extremely durable and sharp alloys with cheaper materials.> To extract the material, a wealthy human corporation genetically engineered the Znyon to manually mine the substance, when it became clear hazard suited prospectors would be prohibitively expensive.> The Znyon are extremely slender to function under low gravity, deep black-skinned to function under the light of the sun,are absolutely hairless, and when in danger of overheating, secrete a translucent, cold and watery paste from their pores.> Like baseline humans, they have two arms and two legs, but unlike humans, their limbs are double-jointed and extremely flexible, possessing two elbows, two knees, and an inhumanly potent sense of balance. Their hands are long and narrow, with an incredibly powerful grip, and their feet are like talons, clawed and able to grasp objects if need be.> Their bird-like eyes have a tinted third eyelid, to protect them from the extremely bright light of their sun, and have no trouble picking out the slightest details. Their long throats are filled with slimy mucous and thousands of miniscule tendrils, perfect for filtering toxins out of the air.> (1/2)

> Their three lungs are extremely versatile, with a vast capacity, they can make do with oxygen, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, even chlorine if necessary, and the Znyon almost never go out of breath. Their lungs can filter moisture from the atmosphere, and they can subsist on trace amounts of water for upwards of two weeks.> After several centuries Zbyo reached peak population capacity, and upon doing so, declared independence from the corporation that spawned them. They threatened to detonate vast stockpiles of explosive charges on both poles, and the corporation, always pragmatic, negotiated a light tariff on Zybex and a protection racket, in exchange the Znyon demanded and received half a dozen colony shops and the schematics for the advanced technology they had been denied to cut costs. > Eventually, when the Znyon had gathered enough resources to sell their own Zybex and materials, and a large enough fleet to hold their own, they declared their corporate contract invalid, and became an autonomous state. The Znyon and the corporation still do mutually beneficial business, and there is almost no bad blood between the two entities.> In the modern age, the Zbyo Union rules as many as two dozen scorched hellholes and their species prospects asteroids across hundreds, if not thousands, of systems.> (2/2)

>at some unknown point, a species of aliens showed up disguising themselves as humans. This was only discovered when some of these aliens went to the doctor, and underwent tests finding that their internal organs are different and more efficient than our own, and they very rarely require sustinance. These aliens (unnamed) do not seem to realize they are aliens, or know where they came from. It is unknown if they are youths, left behind in the safe space by wiser alien parents, or if they somehow wiped their own memory to better hide themselves among us.

> These creatures, commonly known as Dopplegangers, all share almost the exact same genome, and appear the same, apart from slight cosmetic differences. When a Doppleganger reproduces with a baseline human the child is also a Doppleganger, and some paranoid theorists believe they will come to replace baseline humans if they aren't stopped.

>The aliens are extremely offended by the term doppleganger, insisting that they should be treated as equals.

>some humans believe this is the next step in our evolutionary process jumpstarted by some unknown alien benefactor. They see passing the alien traits on to their children as a blessing.

>of course most see it as an unnatural abomination, and some dopplegangers go to the extent of "faking" hunger and thirst as to not be discoveredn as people who oppose their intrusions can necome violent

>science still mostly agrees that dopplegangers, despite their ability to "reproduce" with humans, they are still have very different DNA and are a separate species. The offspring of these relationships are basically a genetic clone of the doppleganger parent. Most biologists have labeled this a "parasitic relationship", whether or not the dopplegangers see it this way is up for debate

>For the most part, the more mobile and proactive superweapons have yet to significantly encroach upon human space. The sole exception is the entity known only to mankind as the Red Probe.>The Probe is an approximately Moon-sized object, apparently composed entirely of an unidentified form of matter; no other components or structural features have ever been observed. Said matter appears to be extremely dense, and yet does not behave like ordinary mass; near the surface, the Probe's gravity is so strong that mankind no spaceship mankind sent to try and examine it ever survived, but the Probe only seems to exert this gravity up to a distance of a few thousand kilometers. Any debris which collides with the Probe sinks below the surface, and not even microscopic fluctuations in volume or apparent mass have been observed.>Equally notable and baffling is the property that gives the Probe its name; the fact that its component matter, despite having an albedo of almost 100%, it only reflects red light. All EM radiation which should be reflected from its surface is replaced with visible light with an exact, unchanging wavelength, varying in intensity such that the overall energy level is conserved.>Roughly a hundred years after the refugee species began to arrive, the Probe appeared on the outskirts of a fringe human colony system. Immediately, it began moving slowly in a straight line - which appeared conveniently timed to avoid colliding with any other celestial object - to intercept the orbit of the system's capital planet. Calculations suggested that the probe would arrive in approximately a standard month.(1/3)

>As the Probe drew closer to the planet, and any attempts to communicate with the Probe or study it in detail failed, the human navy began to prepare a strike force to attempt to divert or repel the Probe. This was met with the appearance of one of the largest bulb-head fleets ever observed near the strike force's staging ground; said fleet announced that they would take "any measures necessary" to prevent military action against the Probe, declining to explain why.>Unnerved by the Bulbies' commitment to this stance, the strike force was immediately dissolved, and the colonial administration ordered not to attack the probe. The planet's government settles for evacuating as much of the populace as possible, leaving behind a number of scientific stations and only the most inacessibly rural colonists.>Once the planet was just outside the Probe's odd gravitational well, the probe's consituent matter began to distort and flow outwards from the Probe, and around the planet, at reletavistic speeds. Within minutes, the entire planet was enveloped by probe-matter, which remained perfectly spherical and retained its odd gravitational properties. No contact could be made with the planet. Human authorites observed nervously.>After three days, the Probe returned to its original shape and relative position with equal speed, remaining in place for an additional day before simply vanishing without any trace of FTL-related radiation or residue. The planet's inhabitants and records universally reported that the Probe retracted immediately after it completely encircled the planet; in fact, biological and atomic evidence does not indicate that these three days passed inside of the sphere.(2/3)

>Several months later, the Probe reappears at the edge of another human colony, and the central human government demands an audience with one of the Phiss in order to explain the phenomenon. Though it agrees, the audience produces little information of value.>The Phiss confirms that the Probe is a creation of one of the pre-war hyper-civilizations, and that it is continually studying planets looking for something. Virtually every other question, from exactly which empire produced it, to what it is searching for, to explanations for its physics-bending properties, are denied. The reason the Phiss denies these questions is always the same; "Anything which might let it learn more about itself is an unacceptable risk." When asked why the Bulbies prevented them from attacking the Probe, it suggested that the probe's attempts to defend itself would pose a threat to the whole of the safe zone.>Once again, the Probe approaches and encircles the system's main planet for the same amount of time. This time, however, when the probe retracts, no trace of the planet is found. Human naval command explodes with panic until, moments later, a Saccades ship exits FTL in the system and begins orbiting the Probe, emitting a still untranslated signal towards the Probe.>Over the course of a day, Saccades ships pour into the system in the same fashion. When the Probe fails to vanish at the end of the day, the Human navy chooses to retract and remove all but the most covert of observation ships from the system.>Saccades' presence in the system has been increasing ever since. Observers are still unsure as to whether they are containing, studying or exploring the vessel; nor are they sure which option is the most disconcerting.(3/3)

You know, it can get much much much sadder, with no more hope, only suffering.There is no sapient life left in the universe.Just non-sapient hyperintelligent grey-goo swarms created by millions of extinct alien civilizations from billions of years ago killing each other across trillions of battlefields all over the universe and it's only a matter of time until one swarm heads this way and snuffs out all remaining life in the universe by deconstructing the entire galaxy in a galaxy-sized cloud of hostile berserker bots.

Like a "The Nightland" on a cosmic scale. The solar system being the last remaining Redoubt that contains life until the lights go out and all life is extinct.

Make this idea sound cooler. Very small superweapon. Non zealot species, pretty chill dudes as things go, encounter it on a vessel with 87 crew members. They scan/hail it. It responds on 87 frequencies. Each response once decoded, is a copy of each crewmembers total genome, and an image. The last thing they will see before they die. It's 100% accurate. One crew member had no image. They are still alive, well beyond their species normal lifespan.

>>54224941Retrocausality is a feature of any set of physics that allows both relativity and FTL. The weapon is a black hole dropped into an inhabited system from the distant future. The tragedy is that this wiped out every species capable of saving the universe before they even evolved. except humans

>>54211926>A theory exists that the entire Zealot religion is the result of one last, garbled 'wait for reinforcements' message from a great power's high command just as the doomsday weapons were deployed

A remnant AI from the preceding wars, the program designated Redacted , appears to have been created as a propagandist's tool by some advanced alien hand.

Redacted attempts to overwhelm hostile communications systems by flooding them with versions of itself. Mere hostile discussion of the program is enough to initiate attacks.

Most frustratingly, Redacted appears immediately whenever hostile discussion occurs. It is theorized that the program is identifying hostile targets by communicating with future versions of itself which are already on the server. The alternative, that it has been here all along is just as dismal.

TL;DR Memetic program that communicates with future and past versions of itself.